Herod's brother

Many languages have terms for siblings that define whether one is younger or older in relation to another sibling.

The brother of Herod is translated as “older brother” in Basa (baatagwu) (source: Rob Koops) or Chilcotin (bunagh) (source: Quindel King).

Reiling / Swellengrebel (p. 178) say: “According to Josephus Herodias’ first husband, referred to in this verse, was Herod, son of Herod the Great and Mariamne (the second wife of that name). Herod the tetrarch was the son of Herod the Great and Malthake, whom he married after Mariamne. Hence ‘adelphou’ refers to an older brother of a different mother.”

The Ninth Commandment (image)

Painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Copyright by the Catholic University Peking, China

Text under painting translated from Literary Chinese into English:
The Ninth Commandment
John criticizes the King for marrying his younger brother’s wife

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

Herod (Antipas)

The Greek that is transliterated as “Herod (Antipas)” in English is translated in Spanish Sign Language with the sign for king and and a sign depicting cutting off the head (of John the Baptist), referring to Matthew 14:10 et al. (Source: Steve Parkhurst)


“Herod” in Spanish Sign Language, source: Sociedad Bíblica de España

For more information on translations of proper names with sign language see Sign Language Bible Translations Have Something to Say to Hearing Christians .

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Herod Antipas .

older brother (Lama)

The Greek that is translated as “brother” in English in the referenced verses is translated in Lama as raal or “older brother.” (Source: Neal Brinneman)

complete verse (Luke 3:19)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 3:19:

  • Noongar: “But John criticised King Herod because he had married Herodias, his brother’s wife, and did many other evil things.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “And he also admonished the wrong of Herodes Antipas, the ruler in Galilea land, because Herodes took away and married Herodias, the wife of his own relative. Yohanes admonished him because of that action, and because of all his other evil actions.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Yahiya also scolded the governor Herod about (the fact) that he had married Herodiyas who had been the wife of his sibling and about the other bad things he did.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Now one of those days when all the people had finished being baptized, Jesus also had himself baptized by John. And then Jesus prayed, and while He was still praying, the heaven was opened and there landed on him the Holy Spirit who looked like a dove. And then God was heard speaking in Heaven, and He said, ‘You are my precious son; I am very pleased with you.’ There were very many things still that John taught those people, because he caused them to understand the good news. And as for John, he told the people that the custom of Governor Herod was bad because Herod had stolen his sister-in-law, Herodias, who was the wife of his younger brother Philip. And that which John told about was not the only evil doing of Herod because there were many other very evil things that he did. And that’s not all the evil that he did because he put John in prison.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “He also scolded Governor Herod on account of his marrying Herodias the spouse of his brother and other bad things that he had done.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “It wasn’t only those people whom Juan was speaking-frankly to, but on the contrary even the king of Galilea who was Herodes. For he was rebuking Herodes because he had grabbed for himself his sister-in-law Herodias who was the wife of his brother Felipe, and still other evil things which he was doing.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Luke 3:19 – 3:20

Exegesis:

ho de Hērōdēs ho tetraarchēs ‘but Herod the tetrarch,’ cf. on v. 1. For de and the connection with the preceding verse, cf. on men oun in v. 18. The verb of which ho Hērōdēs is the subject is prosethēken ‘added,’ see below.

elegchomenos hup’ autou ‘being reproved by him,’ going with ho Hērōdēs. The present tense of the participle suggests that this reproving happened more than once.

elegchō ‘to reprove,’ ‘to show somebody his fault.’

peri Hērōdiados … kai peri pantōn ‘concerning Herodias … and concerning everything.’ The idea of the clause appears to be that John used to reprove Herod because of every wicked thing he did but that his reproval of Herod because of Herodias (cf. Mt. 14.4) was what made Herod have John arrested.

tou adelphou autou. According to Josephus Herodias’ first husband, referred to in this verse was Herod, son of Herod the Great and Mariamne (the second wife of that name). Herod the tetrarch was the son of Herod the Great and Malthake, whom he married after Mariamne, cf. IDB II, 586ff. Hence adelphou refers to an older brother of a different mother.

peri pantōn hōn epoiēsen ponērōn ‘concerning all the wicked things he did.’ ponērōn goes with pantōn and hōn is attraction of the relative pronoun into the case of its antecedent.

ponēros ‘wicked,’ ‘evil,’ ‘bad,’ always with a moral connotation.

prosethēken kai touto epi pasin ‘added also this to all (the wicked things he did).’ pasin refers back to the preceding clause peri pantōn … ponērōn. kai touto refers to the next clause. The clause represents John’s arrest by Herod as the crowning of all his other wicked deeds, cf. New English Bible, An American Translation.

prostithēmi ‘to add,’ ‘to grant.’

katekleisen ton Iōannēn en phulakē ‘he shut up John in prison,’ asyndetic clause, taking up and explaining touto.

katakleiō ‘to lock up,’ ‘to shut up.’ For phulakē, here meaning ‘prison,’ cf. on 2.8.

Translation:

The syntactic structure will have to be changed more or less radically in some languages, e.g. ‘John also reproved Herod … for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all … done. After that/Then he/Herod added to all his crimes this (one): he shut up John in prison.’

To reprove, or, ‘to rebuke’ (for which cf. on 4.35), ‘to scold’ (Kituba, similarly Tae,’ using a verbal derivation of ‘angry’), ‘to hit-with words’ (Batak Toba); or analytically, ‘to say that he had done evil.’

For Herodias. Luke says less than he probably knew, and than we can know from Mk. 6.17f. Style, or decodability may require some clarification, e.g. “over the affair of … H.” (New English Bible, similarly Lü Zhenzhong.), ‘for his doings with H.,’ ‘because of what Herod did about the woman Herodias’ (Manobo, which has to add ‘woman,’ because the proper name and the rendering of “brother’s wife”, i.e. ‘sibling’s spouse,’ do not specify the sex), but Luke’s allusive way of speaking should be preserved as far as possible; if one wishes to state the case overtly, one should do so in a footnote.

His. If Herod has been clearly in focus in the preceding clauses the pronoun will usually be sufficient as reference to him here; if not, one will have to use the proper name, or to change the sentence structure so as to keep one’s references straight.

His brother’s wife, or, ‘whom his brother had married,’ ‘who was married (or, had been given in marriage) to his brother.’

The evil things Herod had done, or, ‘the crimes/misdeeds Herod (or, he) had done,’ ‘Herod’s (or, his) crimes/misdeeds/wicked doings.’ Some versions (e.g. New English Bible, Kituba, Hindi) add ‘other,’ to bring out that ‘his doings with Herodias’ were a crime also.

(V. 20) Added this to them all, or, ‘to all his evil doings/crimes,’ ‘to (lit. on top of) all other bad things he had done’ (Kituba); or, ‘extra added one item’ (Chinese Union Version), ‘did something even worse’ (Western Highland Purepecha, similarly Good News Translation), ‘put crime on top of crime’ (Sranan Tongo).

He shut up John in prison, or, ‘he imprisoned/locked-up J.,’ or, ‘he gave J. rope in the rope house,’ as the idiom is in Alekano. That Herod is not the direct agent, may lead to, ‘he caused-to-be-put J. in prison’ (Kituba, similarly Western Highland Purepecha).

The connexion between “added this to them all” and “shut up J. in prison” is indicated by the forward pointing deictic element “this” in the first sentence, to which the next sentence is epexegetic. To express this relationship more overtly one may add a connective, e.g. ‘namely,’ ‘that is’ (Chinese); elsewhere subordination is preferable, either of the second sentence, e.g. “by throwing J. in prison” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation, similarly some other English versions, Bahasa Indonesia), or of the first sentence, e.g. ‘locked-up J., in-addition-to all those crimes’ (Balinese), ‘imprisoned J., (as) the worst of all the evil things he did.’

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.